Job Discussion Forums

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

So? What's new or heretofore unknown?

NCTBA

[veiledsentiments]

Certainly nothing new for anyone who ever spent time in the Gulf...

It is just this week's topic to slam the Arabs... this time for hypocrisy... because we in the West wouldn't think of being hypocrites.

VS

[sheikher]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/richardspencer/100067347/are-young-saudi-royals-hypocrites-or-just-normal/

Are young Saudi royals hypocrites or just normal?


Both the Telegraph and the Guardian are agreed that one of the most incendiary WikiLeaks files concerns the party attended by US diplomats in Jeddah at the home of a young Saudi royal where dancing, drink and girls were in ready supply.

Drugs are also common at such parties, the diplomats note, though as you would expect they make their excuses and leave before any are brought out at this one. The reason it is incendiary is clear from the Guardian�s comments field � I�m sure the Telegraph one would be no different if comments were open there.

To many readers, it has confirmed the image of Saudi Arabia as a cess-pool of gross hypocrisy, where a plutocratic royal dictatorship denies pleasures to its people in which it freely indulges itself.

Such criticisms are understandable, but wrong. It is not necessarily hypocritical for this young prince (from a subsidiary chain of the family, we are told) to enjoy himself. Because Saudi Arabia is an absolute, theocratic monarchy, its young royals don�t vote for its government and its laws any more than anyone else does. And if they want to rebel, they are only doing what many others would do in their situation.

The hypocrisy is on the part of the religious police, who don�t break up such parties because they know royals are involved. The religious police, or mutawa, already have a well-deserved reputation for cowardice � they go after powerless women who can�t fight back, is what locals say. So that they failed to break up a party of the young and rich shouldn�t surprise us.

There�s a political background to this, too. Although the word critics most often use of Saudi Arabia is mediaeval, the truth is that in many parts of the country � especially Jeddah, where this party took place � the kingdom has become more conservative in recent decades, not less.
That was part of what proved to be an unwise trade-off by the leading royals, particularly the late King Fahd, as militant Islam took hold in the Seventies and Eighties. While never exactly liberal, what signs of openness there were were cut off as a form of appeasement after an Islamist group attacked the Grand Mosque at Mecca in 1979. The House of Saud, having been the ally of the Wahhabi clerics previously, seemed to become their prisoner.

I�m not saying that this sort of party would be legal nowadays if it weren�t for this grand bargain: but it does show that it is a mistake to think of the religious and royal aspects of the regime as a seamless whole. There is in fact a wide range of opinion and faith in Saudi Arabia, from the poor, devout provinces of the centre to liberal and cosmopolitan Jeddah � which the Sauds only conquered in the 1920s.

Many of the royals are devout and pious, like their subjects, and many are westernised, and some are distinctly louche, and no doubt have too much money to boot. But chances are that the prince who hosted this party is no more supportive of the harsh rule of the Wahhabi clerics than you or I would be.

For more on the cowardliness � and increasing unpopularity, at least in middle class circles � of the religious police, I recommend Saudiwoman�s blog, and this tale in particular. I haven�t met the author, but her blog, while apparently a constant denunciation of the terrible discrimination and arbitrary nature of power as exercised in the kingdom, also reminds me of the surprising number of intelligent, pluralistic, well-educated and open Saudis I have come across in the Gulf.

The real lesson of the WikiLeaks cable is the pointlessness of so many attempts of authoritarianism, religious and atheistic, to ban human nature. Denial drives it underground, corrupts it, and almost always leads to abuse of power. I once read that in Franco�s Spain, where some attitudes towards women were not so far removed in principle at least from Saudi Arabia�s, one in nine women at one point was involved in prostitution. A warning to us all, even if we in the West are somewhere near the other extreme.

[johnslat]

This just in - late-breaking news:

"The House of Saud is linked with the family of Shaykh Muhammad bin Abdul-Wahhab through the marriage of the son of Muhammad ibn Saud with the daughter of Muhammad Abd al Wahhab in 1744."

Film at 11.

Regards,
John

[trapezius]

[Vertical]

Sorry for taking so long to get back here...
Long hours and much to do .. (perhaps we forgot that one in our list)

Bebsi, you asked how far I walk..
Well, almost every night I walk about 3km to the corniche to eat and then walk back afterwards.
On Saturday I walked about 6 or km to the nearest Mall (that I could find) and then walked back later.
Any tricks for crossing that huge highway on the corniche (besides having to go all the way down to the one and only bridge crossing) would minimise my risk of injury. (Although I am now the proud owner of an official medical aid card ... Iqama still in production - Insha Ala)
** and I hope I didn't offend by my description of the clothing and headgear.. I use the terms (cautiously) but entirely in respectful jest.

Vert

[Grendal]

Let's see life in Saudi, huh?

7:45 am
wake up.

7:50 am
take stomach medication and make note "don't eat spicy food today"

8:05 am
can now eat some sort of breakfast because medication has dissolved and started to protect stomach

8:15 am
unplug adapter, mouse, earphones, and pack up laptop for daily journey to university. put reading glasses into protective case and store in laptop bag also.

8:20 am
decide on what to wear for class today. maybe go tieless, rebel a bit.

8:30 am
do last check: keys, money, smokes, lighter (very important), lunch (bottle of water and fruit)

8:35 am
have first smoke of the day

8:40 am
leave house to meet other teacher car pool

8:45 am
hop in Ford Explorer and take off with 5 litre carburetor pumping full blast

9:05 am
arrive at university and go sign in before 9:15 am deadline

9:10 am
go check classroom and make sure there are enough chairs and that my table an cabinet are still there. sometimes I find my stuff in the hallway and this really makes my day. on these special days I find it an omen and many things seem to go wrong and students are unimpressed or really chatty more than usual

9:30 am
buy a 4 riyal cup of coffee and go out to have second smoke of the day. while I drink and smoke I ponder the meaning of my existence

9:35 am
head to my cubicle. once there unpack laptop, adaptor, mouse, earphones and reading glasses.

9:40 am
check email. about ten to twelve unread office memos to go through and delete.

9:45 am
log onto eslcafe.com
check for any new interesting jobs. check for any new interesting posts. if having one of those ominous days then rag on sheikher a bit.

10:00 am
read students' projects and correct them

11:00 am
go out for third smoke of the day

11:10 am
plan first class which starts at 1:00 pm

11:45 am
go for lunch before students get out and pack the cafeteria

12:15 pm
go out and have fourth smoke of the day

12:20 pm
start lesson plan for second class which is a different level than first class

12:40 pm
go to washroom (forgot to go all morning)

12:45 pm
sit in office and chat with other teachers about our good classes and hold off on talking about the problem classes till later.

12:55 pm
leave for first class

1:00 pm
start taking attendance that is an ongoing process for about 30 minutes that runs concurrent with your introduction of subject and students wanting to leave again for prayer and washroom.

2:50 pm
end of first class. walk briskly out the building and have fifth and sixth smokes of the day

3:00 pm
start on second lesson plan that was half done in the morning.

3:15 pm
quickly finish second lesson plan and run off to second class.

3:20 pm
start taking attendance that is an ongoing process for almost the first period of a two period class. now it hits you that the students are really tired and just want to go home. meanwhile you must concurrently deliver the lesson plan, what's left of it, and continually get bombarded with, "teacher time", "teacher bathroom". somehow I am able to squeeze in the rest of the plan as homework and dismiss the students 30 or 40 seconds early.

4:50 pm
rearrange chairs in class after students have left. try to kick major pieces of litter on the floor towards the dustbin. write a message on the board to the other teacher to not put my desk and cabinet in the hallway.

5:00 pm
go for my seventh smoke of the day

5:05 pm
go to office and pack up adaptor, mouse, earphones, laptop, and reading glasses. chat with other teachers about my dreaded second class. hear the same news from them about their sleeping students also.

5:15 pm
sign out

5:20 pm
go to parking lot to jump in ready and idling Ford Explorer with 5 litre carburetor and blast off home.

5:45 pm
arrive home and fall on couch. wake up half an hour later with saliva stains on shirt from the drool that comes out of your mouth when you pass out from exhaustion.

6:15 pm
disgusted from the drool on shirt but decide to wear it again tomorrow. order pizza. change into something more comfy. turn on TV, MBC 2 usually. take out adaptor, mouse, earphones, laptop and glasses from carrying case. turn on PS3 that has its own monitor bought second hand just for this purpose. insert Fallout, New Vegas. Boot up laptop and check for emails. there are about 6 new memos from work which I go through and delete. check eslcafe.com again and maybe rag on sheikher again.

7:15 pm
pizza arrives cold, along with the cold potato wedges and warm pop. eat dinner and play some Fallout.

8:30 pm
go to the washroom (which I keep forgetting to do)

8:35 pm
have a smoke of which all count is lost by now maybe I had two, who knows anymore. decide to take a shower.

9:00 pm
get out of shower and find a good movie (rerun) on TV.

between 9:00 pm and 11:00 pm I am multitasking between TV, PS3, and ragging on sheiker on eslcafe.com

11:20 pm
brew a pot of tea and reflect on the day and count how many smokes I have left while smoking and ultimately loosing count again (that's why I majored in English literature and not sciences or maths).

1:00 am
wake up in front of laptop of which I unconsciously right clicked something while sleeping that made my screen freeze.

1:10 am
go to sleep

Regards

Grendal

[Al-Mansoor]

That's a great post Grendal, thanks. Which city do you work in?

[Bebsi]

[Grendal]

[Al-Mansoor]

That's fine. I'm planning to work in Saudi and just wanted to know the good places to work, that's all. But, if Grendal doesn't want to divulge any info, then Grendal has that right.

[Al-Mansoor]

'good' being relative

[johnslat]

Grandal is starting to sound a lot like Gollum. But then, the Kingdom can have a powerful transforming effect.

Regards,
John

[Vertical]

Bebsi ...
If you see Grendal's brilliant post, please refer to items noted at 08h45 and 17h20 respectively.
This is why I choose to walk. At least I am in control... and can take evasive action. (Thanks to many re-runs of Karate Kid)
Travelling in a car in Khobar is suicidal and I like it here too much to die just yet!

Grendal..
That was just too brilliant to describe adequately. My confr�res (in offices nearby) thought I had found some marijuana I was laughing so much. (You can imagine how crouded my office became until they realised I had none-to share.)

Vert..

[cmp45]

Grendal, I wonder what your routine was like before you came to KSA???